We’ll see a reassessment and reevaluation and then stay the course,” Gadomski said today at a conference in New York today. Plans to build the five reactors are already underway, he said, and “We don’t see that changing.”

The biggest threat to new nuclear power plants may be the low cost of natural gas, which can be used to fuel power stations that are quicker and cheaper to build than atomic- fueled facilities, said said Edward Kee, vice president of NERA Economic Consulting.

“Everything in the U.S. is challenged by cheap natural gas,” Kee said at the conference.